


Royal Flush

by Roundworm



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Are they flirting? Is that how you flirt fellas?, Gambling, ITS OBVIOUS, M/M, Missed Connections, Oh yeah also Joe either sucks at poker or Leslie is unnaturally good, Poker, Realization, Song Lyrics, Tom is only really mentioned, but HE’S NOT DEAD I PROMISE, its not like straight out I mean it’s woven into the fic but like, that’s open to interpretation, this is merely an innocent cringey lyrics based fic (:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25397590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roundworm/pseuds/Roundworm
Summary: Joe tried not to be too terribly obvious when he watched the man open a pocket on the case out of the corner of his eye. The man pulled a deck of cards out of the pocket—it looked pristine—and carefully removed them from the box. His mindless shuffling was almost mesmerizing.With a quick snap of his wrist, the man cut his deck and set himself up a game of classic Solitaire on the little table in front of him. Forgetting all about subtlety, and having nothing else to look at that was even half as interesting, Joe watched the man play.
Relationships: Joseph Blake/Lieutenant Leslie
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Royal Flush

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse I was just listening to The Gambler on loop for like 3 hours and I was like yeah I’m gonna write this now
> 
> Also I really have no idea what time this takes place in so I just said Modern,, like phone booths are commonly used? But also? CBS is streaming in the UK? Idk man ignore those inaccuracies like I did while writing it hskdjjsnsnd

It was five in the morning when Joe boarded the train that would take him to work. He rested his chin on his palm and stared out the window at the inky blackness of the sky. He didn’t notice his eyelids drooping until the door to the carriage he sat in opened rather noisily. He sat up at attention, as if his boss had caught him slacking on the job. 

It was not, in fact, his boss who had entered the carriage, but a raggedy-looking man in what looked to be sleepwear and a worn out beanie fit over his head. The man rolled a suitcase along behind him that he set down beside him when he took a seat on the opposite side of the carriage. 

Joe tried not to be too terribly obvious when he watched the man open a pocket on the case out of the corner of his eye. The man pulled a deck of cards out of the pocket—it looked pristine—and carefully removed them from the box. His mindless shuffling was almost mesmerizing. 

With a quick snap of his wrist, the man cut his deck and set himself up a game of classic Solitaire on the little table in front of him. Forgetting all about subtlety, and having nothing else to look at that was even half as interesting, Joe watched the man play. 

When the man placed the last king on its stack, he glanced up and met Joe’s eye. Shit. 

“Where are you headed?” He asked the man, as if he wanted to talk all along and wasn’t just staring like a creep. The man glanced down at his cards, then back up again. It was as if he didn’t really understand why he was being spoken to. 

“The airport.” The man answered vaguely, with a distinct Irish lilt and the kind of voice that sounded like it hadn't been used in years. 

Joe nodded slowly, the awkwardness sinking into his bones. Well, he’d already come this far, might as well take a pickaxe to the hole he’s dug. “Where to?”

The man looked down at his cards _again_. “Nevada, for the World Series.” 

Should he risk it? Was it a stupid question to ask what World Series he could possibly be talking about?

“Nice.” He responded instead, like he understood what the man was saying, and nodded again. “World Series. Big fan.”

The man looked at him with a bored expression. “For Poker.” 

Joe looked back out the window and considered jumping out of it. “Right.”

Why did he even speak up? The man hadn’t even said anything, Joe could’ve just sat there and watched him play cards in silence. The sound of creaking got his attention again, but by the time he looked up, the card player had taken a seat across from him. Joe forced down a jolt of shock. 

The man held up his deck, showing it off, before setting it down on the table between them. “You know how to play Five-card Draw?” 

Joe’s gaze flicked between the deck and the man’s face. “Of course I do.” He cleared his throat with a hesitant half smile. “What exactly would you get out of playing me, though?” 

The man shrugged and began shuffling the deck again. “Entertainment. Surely you’re fuckin’ bored out of your mind too, if you got a kick out of watching me play _Solitaire_.”

He couldn’t help the awkward little chuckle that escaped him, the embarrassment over getting caught returning to him a bit. “Fair enough. And what are we betting?” 

The man hummed, then tapped his fingers on the table. “Eh, no betting.” There was a ghost of a smile on his face, a bit challenging. “Don’t want you leaving the train with nothing but the shirt on your back, after all.”

He huffed out a laugh. “Right, right, of course. I’m sure you’re the patron saint of Five-card Draw.”

“So you _do_ know of me.”

Joe looked out the window to hide a wider grin, then turned back towards him with a far more controlled expression. “Deal me in then, card shark.”

It was a pretty simple maneuver to play the game: discard what you don’t want out of five cards and replace them from the stack in the middle. In fact, it was so simple that Joe was losing any real focus, instead thinking about what exactly he’d done to get himself to this point in his life.

Playing poker with a strange man on a train. 

The length to which his mind drifted must have been written all over his face, because the man gathered the cards up together in a stack and tapped the side of it loudly against the table to get his attention back. Joe blinked, straightened up. The man dealt his cards once again. 

“Y’know,” He spoke plainly as he went through the motions of the game. “I basically get paid to read people, and...” The man discarded two cards and replaced them from the stack in the middle, then glanced up and met his eye. “It’s pretty obvious that you’re out of aces here.”

Joe slowly looked down at his hand. Okay, yeah, he didn’t have any aces. He discarded three. 

“If you’d be so kind as to,” The man jerked his chin towards the little bottle of whiskey that sat on Joe’s side of the table with a pointed look. “I could give you some advice.”

Joe rolled his eyes (he wasn’t exactly planning on becoming a professional gambler, what did he need the advice for?), but a smile was tugging at his lips. The bottle was nearly empty anyway—he’d gotten it at the beginning of the train ride. He slid the bottle to the man’s side. “Have at it.” 

The man happily downed the rest of the bottle, wiped his mouth with the back of his gloved hand, then revealed his hand. A flush. Joe sighed and revealed his three of a kind. The man nodded and gathered the cards up with one hand while the other withdrew the cigarette sticking out of his beanie, placing it between his teeth. 

Instinctively, Joe reached into his bag and flicked on his lighter, not even noticing that the man was probably reaching for his _own_ lighter in his _own_ bag. They stared at each other for a moment in silence before the man leaned forward enough to light up. 

Maybe a bit more forward than necessary. Joe quickly flicked it off and stuffed it away, avoiding further eye contact. 

When he looked up again, the man’s face had turned stonelike in its severity, his gaze darker than even before. Joe felt like if he looked away again, his soul would be stolen. 

“If you’re gonna play the game, you’ve gotta learn to do it right.”

He lost track of the amount of times they played at some point, was losing track of time altogether, as the man’s rumbling voice advised Joe how to play the game. “You have to know when to hold them, _and_ when to fold them. Don’t be cocky about it.” The man dealt their cards. 

Joe was kind of fading in and out of the real world, but the words rattled through his brain anyway. He nodded along, looked down at his cards, and discarded three.

“And for fuck’s sake, don’t count your winnings while you’re still sitting at the table.” The man sniffed, gesturing with his cigarette held loosely between his fingers. Joe rolled the window down as an afterthought while the man discarded three cards of his own. “There’s time enough afterwards.”

All of this seemed pretty rudimentary, but he wasn’t about to complain; he enjoyed listening to the man’s voice. Joe laughed in quiet disbelief when he lost once again. 

There was a strange hint of… finality to the next game. Nothing really changed, but he just had a feeling. It disappointed him far more than it probably should’ve, what with his losing streak and all. 

“Now here’s a real trade secret.” The man leaned forward a bit—Joe had the weirdest temptation to lean in as well. “A real gambler knows exactly what to throw away and what to keep.” To make a point, the man discarded his entire hand without even a single glance down. There was a pause, Joe’s heart was pounding. Was this man seriously the deity of poker or something? 

“Every hand’s a winner if you think about it, and every hand’s a loser.” The man settled into his seat again, slouching back like he didn’t have a care in the world. Then, he cryptically muttered, “And, really, the _best_ you can hope for is to die in your sleep in the end.” 

“What—?” Joe asked, flabbergasted. He hadn’t looked at his own hand yet, too entranced by his speech. “Wh— _die_? This…” He stopped. Thought. “Was any of that advice… for the game?” 

The man cracked—he laughed until he was breathless, his head dropping back against the back of the seat. “For _Five-card Draw_? God, no. Half the fuckin’ game is luck anyway.” The man wiped tears of laughter from his eyes (Joe should really be feeling offended by now but the crow’s feet adorning the man’s face did a lot to endear him). “Go on then, your draw.” 

Joe scoffed out a laugh, then shook his head and pushed his hand forward. “I fold.”

The man whistled, then flipped over his hand. Nothing. The hand was absolute shit. Hesitantly, Joe flipped his own over. Full house. He groaned, head in his hands while the man laughed even more. 

“That’s 27-0, then.” The man gathered up his cards and carefully stacked them back up. “Shit luck you’ve got there.”

Joe massaged his temples. “Yeah, tell me about it.” 

“I’m guessing that’s not about the game either?”

He wasn’t really one for opening up to people at _all,_ much less professional gamblers he meets the same day, but he really just spilled his guts then. About how he fancied himself a real city man when he was younger while he still lived out in the country with his mother and younger brother. About how much he regrets his choice to move out, to come to London where everything was smoggy and grey and to park his ass in a shitty office chair forty hours a week, but he felt like he couldn’t turn back now. Like he had to prove something to himself and to his family. He was already _here_ , after all. 

He was afraid he wouldn’t be welcomed back. 

The man tucked his deck back into his suitcase and peered at him in silence for a moment. “There’s a bit more advice I forgot to tell you.” He said eventually, taking one more long drag from his cigarette before snubbing it out on the side of his bag. “To play the game right, you have to know when to walk away as well.” 

Joe melted back, in a bit of a daze, while everything slowly sunk in. What everything meant. 

“I think it’s about time you ran.”

Suddenly, something occurred to him—something that hadn’t before. “Shit—this is my stop!” Joe scrambled out of the seat, banging his knee against the table in front of him. As he was gathering his bag, he looked back up at the man. “What— what is your name?”

The man looked bored again, but with the amount of time Joe has spent looking at his face in the past hour (or was it longer?), he could tell the man was sporting a sharky grin on the inside. 

“Tune into CBS on the 25th, 9:00 PM.” He said, yawning into his fist. “I’ll be the talented, attractive one.”

Joe would’ve slapped him if he wasn’t probably right. He didn’t have time to argue though, because the train horn was blaring again and he had to sprint to get out before he missed it. 

He couldn’t focus for longer than a full minute at work—he was amazed that he even got a single thing done that day. By the time it was over, it was dark outside again. He stalled at the door when he left, looked back at the building, and thought back to the man he’d met on the train that morning. 

_‘_ _I think it’s about time you ran.’_

He made his way to the nearest phone booth and called his mother. Joe held his breath as he waited for her to pick up, closed his eyes, and counted to ten. 

“Hello?” He heard her say. Joe let all his breath at once, then cringed. 

“Uh— hello, mum.” He replied, rubbing the back of his neck. She gasped. 

“Hello, dear! Why, I wasn’t expecting a call from this number! Is something the matter?” 

Joe squeezed his eyes shut and squared his shoulders. No crying until he’s home. “No, no, nothing’s the matter.” God, how should he word this?

“Oh, that’s good, that’s good.” She sighed in relief. Then, her voice went a little hesitant. “Ah… I know that you’re very busy, but I was just— well, Tommy and I, we planted more trees a while ago and it’s getting…” She laughed a bit. “A bit out of hand. If you could come out for—for a week at the most, just to help out a little, that would…”

There it was. Joe steeled his nerves, looked back at the office building again. “That’s— that wouldn’t be a problem at all. In fact, uh… well, I… it’s not really…” 

His mother hummed quietly. “It’s not what you thought, is it?” She asked, not condescendingly. 

“Not quite.” He agreed, rubbing his neck harder. “Not quite. Um… mum, I really hate to burden you or Tom, but—”

“Oh, _please_ come home, dear!” 

No. Crying. Until. He’s. Home. 

“Thank you, mum, yeah, I’ll… I’ll be home as soon as I can.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll call you soon. I love you.”

A while after the call ended, he finally found strength enough in his knees to make his way back to the train—and not a moment too soon. The ride back was far more crowded than the one that morning, and nobody was playing poker on the tables. He sat down across from an elderly couple and set his bag on his lap, absentmindedly slipping his hand into an outside pocket. 

Furrowing his brow, he pulled out… a card. The ace of spades. He definitely didn’t put that there. Joe scoffed, shook his head, and leaned back in his seat, pointedly ignoring the tears fighting tooth and nail to escape. 

Joe got home—his _real_ home, out in the country—on the 25th after quitting over the phone, effectively burning any bridges in that field again. His room was the same as he’d left it, thankfully, and it didn’t take too long to move his belongings back in. He made sure of that. 

Because that night, to the bemusement of his family, he turned on the live recording of the World Series of Poker at 9:00 PM sharp. 

“Ellis Leslie” got second place in the end. Joe thumbed the corner of the ace of spades and clicked his tongue. The gambling man didn’t keep enough luck for himself. 

**Author's Note:**

> Oh yes, ALSO! I’m like 99% sure the WSOP is 7 hand picked American poker players but like. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


End file.
